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Friday, February 22, 2008

ISRAEL SURROUNDED?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CON COUGHLIN IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

This article is pure propaganda, playing on the 'little David facing the Philistines' theme exploited so many times over the last fifty years.

Let's not forget that the last time Israel used this theme heavily was the Six Day War, a war which Israel actually did everything it could to instigate, because it knew it could easily win and expand its territory. Some very dark operations and calculated diplomatic moves led up to that war in which Israel of course struck first.

Hamas doesn't have the capacity to be a serious threat to Israel. Full stop.

The history of Hamas includes Israeli secret services subsidizing it in order to create a rival for Fatah and in order to generate chaos in Palestinian leadership.

And today that is just what we see.

Of course, Israel's refusal to even speak with an elected government has help create terrible tensions. So, too, its campaign to starve the government out and even illegally arrest dozens of members, as well as making public threats of murder against the party's leader.

Israel claims Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel justifies this. But that is a dishonest claim.

Many nations refuse to recognize other governments as a tactic. The U.S. has done this a great deal. It refused to recognize the USSR for many years. It refuses to recognize the government that has ruled Cuba for more than forty years.

It's not good policy, but it hardly justifies what Israel claims it does.

It is known that Israel maintains a group of secret service killers dressed as Palestinians in the territories. One can just imagine how busy they've been in assisting all fighting and blurring events in Israel's favor.

Israel now likely believes it has every excuse it needs to invade Gaza and kill great numbers of Hamas people. Or it may just choose to starve the entire population. Gaza is effectively a giant outdoor prison.